


Rest

by blythechild



Category: V for Vendetta (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>V discovers that the best gift that one can receive after a long day is comfort from another person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for a piece of fanart by wednesday42. There are no warnings for this piece.
> 
> This is fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal entertainment.

He was exhausted.

He was working too hard and too fast. Not since his early days could he remember such all-consuming, complete weariness. Back then he had been reckless, fearlessly pushing the edges of his limitations purely out of curiosity – how much pain can I withstand? If my mind has no breaking point, when will my body fail me? 

If it was just physical, he would not be so worried, but now there was a caustic emotional component as well. His own physicality had ceased to bother him years ago; it wasn’t so much that he did not _feel_ things as it was that he simply ignored those impulses. They were ever-present and they only slowed him down. Emotional weariness however, was something entirely new and very unpleasant. Everyday he awoke after a night of sleeplessness to face another day of grueling labor feeling defeated even before he began. He felt like a nail pummeled into an unforgiving surface only to be wrenched free and pummeled all over again. A few more weeks of this and he’d drop where he stood and happily allow his plans to drift into memory.

A bulk of his daily energy had become focused on _her_. Now in the final stages of his master plan, a secondary one surrounding her had developed with frightening clarity that was going to change both of them irrevocably. The emotional sidecar to his physical pummeling was the omnipresent self-doubt: will she ever understand? Will she forgive me? Can I survive it if she fails? What will become of me if she sees me as a monster?

Stumbling through the darkened Gallery, he shook his head to quiet the invisible nagging if only for a microsecond. Passing by the edge of the TV room he caught his toe on the edge of a couch leg and tripped, growling softly at his own clumsiness.

“You are becoming old and sen-ti-men-tal…” He pronounced each syllable of the last word as if it were acid on his tongue.

“V?” a sleepy voice drawled from the depths of the couch “Are you alright?”

A tiny hand, pale even in the near twilight of the Gallery, pressed into his gloved one where he caught himself on the corner of the sofa. His breath hitched in surprise both at her touch and her presence; had he been more himself, she never would have caught him off guard. He stared down at her but even his bleary-eyed exhaustion couldn’t diminish the sudden pulse pounding that he felt at the sight of her sleep-tussled hair and wrinkly clothing. Even her croaked inquiry made him unreasonably happy, though the knowledge that he could be so easily seduced by normal behavior made him inwardly cringe. _Shape up, man! She’s the reason that you’re a mess now. You were functioning just fine before she showed up…_

Was I? he silently countered. Or was I just dying by inches and didn’t know it? Am I so warped that the only way that I can show how I feel is to destroy this beautiful young thing? Perhaps I deserve the endless, sleepless nights with this harpy chorus in my head…

“I’m sorry, Evey.” V mumbled. “I had no clue that you were sleeping out here. Is there something amiss with your quarters?”

“No.” Evey yawned hugely and then tapped V’s hand with hers, sending his fugitive heart into dangerous spasms. “Fell asleep out here while reading. I wanted to be here when you got back, to see how you were…” 

“See how I was?” He was barely breathing now.

“It seems like ages since I’ve seen you for more than a few minutes. You’re always coming or going…I’ve missed you.”

“Oh.” V said quietly.

A silent moment stretched out between them. V seemed to expand and sag at the same time; contradictory urges manifesting in his twitching limbs and torso. Evey appeared not to notice, for which V was silently grateful, but she eyed him strangely in any case. She cocked her head and whispered in a way that made him think of Sirens tempting sailors towards rocky coastlines.

“You look tired, V.”

“I’m a masked man. How could you possibly tell?” He tried to make it sound casual.

“Am I wrong, then?”

“No.” He sighed as if it were his last breath. “No, you’re not wrong.”

“I’ve never seen you take a clumsy step, V. You’re always so fluid, so in control…”

_I wish that I could show you how out of control I am all the time, Evey. It would frighten us both to see just how much of me swims in chaos…You make it all go away –_

V was unaware that he simply stood there staring down at her. The silence lingered between them again and coloured Evey’s face with curiosity, concern and sympathy, by turns. Eventually, she sat up and crouched on her knees, sliding her hand up his arm and holding it in a light but firm grip. V paid no attention to her hand, only watched her child’s face as it drew closer and into focus.

“Come sit with me, V.”

Every inch of him wanted to fight the offer. Every inch wanted to be rigid and strong and impermeable. Every inch but the small bit of acreage on his arm that warmed under her grasp. The lull of her voice, the doubts in his head, the deep marrow-borne desire to just give in for once paralyzed his tongue and moved his feet around the sofa to stand before her. To his amazement, he stretched out both hands to her and she took them tenderly in her own as she pulled him down towards her. He sat beside her, his body half facing her and leaned back into the soft folds of the couch. A small sigh escaped the mouth of the mask.

“See?” She whispered. “I knew that I was right…”

“Yeeeesssssssssss.” He whispered back, no knowing what, exactly, he was acquiescing to.

“Lean against me.”

His mask turned and scrutinized her. Tension started to flood his body at once. What was really happening here? He couldn’t remember how he was supposed to act in a situation like this.

“S’okay.” She cooed as her fingers traced hypnotic circles over the surface of his gloves. “Just take your ease a bit, that’s all. It’s nothing more than that.”

Her request sounded so reasonable. Her voice was so calm, as if she knew exactly what she was doing. For once, it felt wonderful _not_ to be the one in control. Once again, every inch of him thought better of the notion. Every inch except the one that slid his shoulders across the back of the couch and towards her shoulder. His eyes rolled up into his head and closed; it was all starting to feel like a dream anyway. The side of his head met her shoulder and suddenly her hands were there – on his chin and around his shoulder – directing him closer and lower down. When he came to rest, he felt a pillow under his head, and he felt the steady (if somewhat rapid) beating of her heart beneath that. A small moan shamefully escaped his lips, but he no longer cared, now fully convinced that he was having some sort of vivid dream. Her hands took up their positions massaging his palms again; occasionally pushing down on pressure points that seemed designed to lead him inextricably towards surrender.

“Evey…” He mumbled.

Beneath him, a vibration began to permeate the pillow, as if she was purring. It took him almost a minute to match the sound with what he knew that he was hearing above him: humming. She was humming something ancient and soft, the sound making a lovely counterpoint to her heartbeat against him. 

He drifted for a time, lost in her voice and her hands and that strangely rapid heartbeat. With an abruptness that surprised him, some fundamental barrier inside him crumbled in the face of her gentleness. The dam burst and flooded him with a frightening, all-consuming longing. He wanted to curl up inside her, to forget every concern and meticulous plan and listen to her heart forever. He didn’t want anything but the fleeting sense of peace that he felt now, in her arms. He would selfishly let the world burn for this moment, again and again.

Without his consent, V’s body curled more tightly into Evey’s. He felt his taunt, sore muscles melt into her softer frame beneath him. His legs wrapped around hers, his torso draped and twisted itself across her chest, his head found a home under her collarbones. All the while she continued to sing, her body accepting whatever pressure he put on her without complaint. His rational side screamed to get up, go to his room, and remove himself from this unspeakable transgression of his boundaries. But her song moved through him like smoke, coating and addling him into the exact suggestibility that made his next action possible.

He took off his gloves.

Evey’s song paused briefly as he reached up to her with his naked, scarred paws. Her breath hitched – either from revulsion or shock, he didn’t care to speculate – and then settled as she laced her fingers between his. Her heartbeat had picked up speed again, though her song remained steady and sure when she resumed it. One of her hands drifted across his doublet and came to rest over his heart: now, he felt connected to her thoroughly – a completed circuit, a perfect circle of calming energy.

“Evey,” He moaned softly again. “It feels like you’ve always been here…is that possible?”

Her song stopped, though he barely noticed as he fell into the disorienting state that precedes a deep slumber. He was vaguely aware of her breath stirring the top of his wig; he imagined what her lips looked like as they brushed his head, and sighed.

“Shhhhhh,” She whispered. “Rest now.”

She commanded and, for once, he obeyed.


End file.
